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Sex, Luck and Distributive Justice

If ‘status anxiety’ is as big a threat to individual well-being as many egalitarians seem to think then logically they should favour the equalisation of opportunities based on physical attractiveness as well as those based on income. Policies focussed solely on ‘correcting’ the income distribution may simply intensify the significance of physical attractiveness or other status markers unrelated to levels of material wealth. In the absence of income redistribution a person who is physically unattractive may be ‘compensated’ by their relative wealth, while someone who is relatively poor but physically attractive may be ‘compensated’ by their beauty. An exclusive focus on income redistribution in this case intensifies the importance of beauty as a status marker and does an injustice to the rich but ugly person.

This argument is not intended to be as flippant as it may seem. Sex is an important if not crucial part of most people’s lives. Indeed, survey evidence indicates that people often rank finding an attractive and satisfying partner equal to if not more highly in their happiness quotient than having a high-paying job. The determinants of whether one is sexually successful are, however, often the result of factors which are ‘not deserved’. Those fortunate enough to be born with genes for above average attractiveness are likely to have a greater choice of potential partners than those less well endowed – but they no more deserve these characteristics than does someone deserve the advantages from being born into a higher income home, having the intelligence quotient of Stephen Hawking or the football skills of Wayne Rooney. On egalitarian grounds, therefore, differences in attractiveness meet the usual criteria considered to warrant redistributive state action – they are an important factor influencing the quality of individuals lives and they are distributed in a manner which is to use Rawls’s terminology, ‘arbitrary from a moral point of view’. One might, therefore, seek to justify a range of policies to improve access to ‘sexual goods’. These could include the provision of vouchers to enable the less attractive to buy the experience of sex with someone who is physically more desirable or if the direct involvement of money payments for sex is thought to debase the nature of the act then people could secure these goods ‘free at the point of delivery’ from professional public service sex workers contracted by the National Health Service. Alternatively, the less attractive might be provided with subsidised access to cosmetic surgery, or the more attractive might be required to undergo some simple and relatively painless surgical procedures in order to ‘level the playing field’.

With the possible exception of Martha Nussbaum, who has argued that sexual fulfilment is a human right, most egalitarians would (thankfully) balk at such suggestions.* That they do so, however, reveals the root inconsistency of much egalitarian doctrine. So called ‘luck egalitarians’ are obsessed with ‘compensating’ people for inequalities which result from ‘chance’ rather than ‘choice’ – but if eliminating the effects of luck is the key to social justice then un-chosen differences in sex appeal which contribute to the chances of a fulfilled life should indeed be the subject of redistribution.

It will not do to claim that income redistribution is justified because it requires less invasive procedures – a lifetime of punitive taxation for a high income person may turn out equally invasive as taxing the beautiful or requiring that they undergo a one-off ‘de-beautifying’ procedure. Moreover, if we accept that sexual equalisation is in fact too intrusive to warrant state intervention this would be to concede that luck cannot be eliminated as a significant factor in peoples’ lives. It will be no comfort to the rich but ugly person to know that their wealth can be confiscated in the name of social justice but that their lack of sex appeal cannot be the legitimate subject of public policy because this would be ‘too intrusive’. All the egalitarian could say to such a person is that they are the unfortunate victims of the ‘wrong kind of luck’.

Robert Nozick’s ‘solution’ to the problem of unequally distributed status is a more persuasive one. Instead of choosing one dimension such as income on which to equalise people better to have a society characterised by many different dimensions against which one can judge success – income, sex appeal, intelligence, athletic prowess, aesthetic sense, degree of sympathy for other persons, etc., etc. In such a society people who fair poorly on some dimensions in relation to their fellows are likely to find a source of self esteem from other dimensions where they do better. For those unfortunate enough to score poorly on all the relevant dimensions then better to promote self esteem by telling them that they have done as well as they can – given their limited attributes. Hardly a perfect solution to the arbitrariness of life, but considerably more plausible than an egalitarian dystopia which does actually attempt to ‘compensate’ people for the many ways in which they ‘undeservedly’ differ , or one which fixes arbitrarily on material wealth as the only legitimate subject of distributive justice.

*Nussbaum would not support de-beautification of the attractive because this would breach the human right of bodily integrity on her ‘list’ of what is required for a flourishing human life.

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“The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.”

This is the opening paragraph of the short story “Harrison Bergeron” written, ironically, by famous lefty Kurt Vonnegut, and published first in 1961.

A recent study suggested that physically attractive people earn more over a lifetime than less attractive people. To offset undeserved genetic good fortune, those that are deemed too attractive could be taxed at a rate that would reduce their income to equal what the less attractive earn. Or perhaps a law would require that everyone being interviewed for a job must wear the same mask.

Please elucidate – what would be the shade of grey/ middle course of action to take. The Nozick ‘solution’ – though ‘imperfect’ is the best one I can envisage – but maybe you can do better. Thanks for the comment. MP

Mark, what’s actually wrong with the luck egalitarian option? It’s a damn sight better than what we’re doing at the moment (nothing) and what Nozick suggests we do (nothing, apart fom a small and tokenistic show of emotional support). Nozick’s solution is like telling a bullied child that its not their fault; they KNOW its not their fault, what they want is for the bullies to stop bullying! Similarly, the naturally unattractive will want some equality of outcome.

What’s happening now is that the unattractive are victims of neglect. ‘Free association’ is only worth something if you have decent options for associations. Otherwise it looks like a pitiful excuse for exclusion and an abnegation of responsibility. The fact everyone else might be neglecting does not mean you have less of a duty not to neglect. This also applies to people with mild social disorders such as SAD or Asperger’s.

However, it’s good that at least someone else is thinking about this kind of thing. It’s a start.

So – no substantive argument for why sexual luck egalitarianism is a bad idea, and no substantive argument for why Nozick’s non-solution (which basically amounts to not helping the unattractive out at all) is a better idea. Not a good start, in my view.

I can’t actually see why a world in which the ‘naturally unattractive’* are compensated in some form of ‘social good’ (like sex or at least some form of intimacy and affectionate human contact) and wealth (because of course attractive people tend to earn more; if there is a distinct causal relationship here this redistribution would be warranted on luck egalitarian grounds) would be a bad world to live in. I’m not suggesting we go around mutilating attractive people’s faces (there are moral concerns that we should trade off with luck egalitarian policies – I don’t think luck egalitarians would back a policy that took out an eye from sighted people to give to the blind, or that if luck egalitarianism demanded the killing and torture of millions of people we would have a moral obligation to carry it out) but the sex worker vouchers policy could be a step in the right direction. It could also be compatible with a Cohenite ‘egalitarian ethos’, where more attractive people actively want to help out less attractive people and improve their lives, and gain fulfilment from doing so. This might seem unrealistic, but that’s only because until now we’ve always been throwing the unattractive to the lions, and avoiding talk about the unfairness of it all. And don’t give me the Andersonian line that ‘they’d be helping them out of pity which is disrespectful’ – as Dworkin said this has been a common excuse for the well-off to avoid helping out the less fortunate. I also posit that people ought not to feel bad about their disadvantages that are morally arbitrary – maybe they do, but they ought not to.

Perhaps we ought to consider ‘attractiveness luck egalitarianism’, and even if difficult to apply in practice we might do well to consider it as an ideal theory that we work towards. I think that we owe it as a society to the unattractive, many of whom live lonely and unfulfilling lives because of morally arbitrary factors.

*As opposed to non-morally-arbitrary issues of attractiveness, like perhaps obesity, or someone who dresses poorly but earns a fair amount of money nevertheless.

I’m not convinced that legalising prostitution would make too much of a difference, nor would it be particularly just on its own as a policy. I need to clarify the position I’m making though – I don’t think there should only be direct financial compensation – at the very least some of the compensation should be conditional on the way it is spent, and thus would be more likely to be equalising in the relevant areas. My objections to simply legalising prostitution are:

1. It wouldn’t make much of a difference because of why people enjoy sex – I’m not convinced that prostitutes can fulfil many of the romantic desires people have linked to attractiveness – genuine intimacy and affection, an emotional connection with another human being and the sense that someone understands them as people. I don’t think prostitutes can provide these things.

2. I don’t think it would be just on its own, even if it did make a significant difference – why should the naturally disadvantaged have to pay as much as the naturally advantaged out of their own pocket for prostitutes anyway, legal or not? The disadvantaged ought to have subsidised access to prostitution, to some degree. At least, that holds if you’re committed to the luck egalitarian line of thinking.

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